‘Facing the past is still our biggest problem': Bosnia divided and dysfunctional 30 years after Srebrenica genocide
They are pictures of hundreds of Serbs allegedly killed by Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) troops in this area during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Placed on the approach to the vast Srebrenica burial ground ahead of Friday's commemoration events there, they are also part of Serb attempts to relativise or deny the genocide that have not diminished over time.
The refusal of Serb officials to acknowledge the genocide is the most emotive of many obstacles to reconciliation in Bosnia, which still labours under a postwar political framework that paralyses decision-making and only entrenches ethnic divisions.
'Those pictures are of soldiers, veterans of the Bosnian Serb army, so the message is the same as always – it is still denial, and they are glorifying those people,' says Camil Durakovic, a Bosniak former mayor of Srebrenica who still lives in the town.
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'Now it's 30 years and I don't see progress. In fact, I see us going backwards ... This government is reversing anything good that was done since the war ended,' he adds. 'Facing the past is still our biggest problem.'
Camil Durakovic, a Bosniak vice-president of Republika Srpska in Bosnia and a former mayor of Srebrenica. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
Durakovic is referring to the government of Republika Srpska, the Serb-run region linked by a weak central government in Sarajevo to Bosnia's other 'entity', the Bosniak-Croat Federation. The federation is subdivided into 10 cantons, each with its own government and parliament.
Bosnia also has an international high representative – with broad powers to issue edicts – who oversees implementation of the Dayton Accords, a 1995 peace deal that imposed this convoluted administration on the shattered former Yugoslav republic after fighting had killed about 100,000 of its people.
Western capitals and a series of high representatives in Sarajevo have tried for three decades to make Bosnia more cohesive by strengthening state institutions, and by holding out the promise of eventual European Union membership if reforms succeed.
Yet Republika Srpska resists attempts to transfer any of its powers to the state, and its long-time leader, Milorad Dodik, frequently threatens to seek secession for the region rather than allow its deeper integration in the Bosniak-majority country.
Milorad Dodik, the long-time leader of Republika Srpska, frequently threatens to seek secession for the region. Photograph: Fehim Demir/EPA
Alongside leaders of neighbouring Serbia and with support from
Russia
, Dodik and his allies in Republika Srpska deny that Serb forces committed genocide in Srebrenica, flying in the face of international court rulings and the convictions for genocide at a United Nations tribunal in The Hague of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, respectively the wartime political and military chiefs of the Bosnian Serbs.
'Serbs in Srebrenica did not commit genocide,' Dodik said on Saturday, while describing the July 1995 massacre as a 'terrible crime' but also calling himself a 'comrade' of Mladic and Karadzic.
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Ratko Mladic: 'Terminally ill' Bosnian Serb general serving life for genocide seeks release
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He was attending an event in the town of Bratunac, 10km from Srebrenica, to honour thousands of Serb civilians and soldiers that locals say were killed by Bosniak forces in the area during the war. Although Bosniaks and Croats were convicted at The Hague, many Serbs believe their crimes have never been adequately punished and are overlooked or diminished by the Bosnian state and the West.
'They know everything, just as we do ... All we can conclude is that Sarajevo is defending the crime committed here in Bratunac,' said Dodik.
'They tried to portray Serbs as criminals and other nations as victims. I no longer trust them at all,' he added, noting the absence of western diplomats at the commemoration. 'They are not here today – even if they were, I wouldn't know what to say to them. I am proud of the Russian ambassador, who is always with us.'
The Bosnian flag flies over the graves of many of the more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys massacred by Serb forces in and around Srebrenica in July 1995. The cemetery at Potocari outside Srebrenica will host a 30-year commemoration event on Friday. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
Before Russia launched armed aggression against Ukraine in 2014, the countries of former Yugoslavia were the main European arena for geopolitical rivalry between Moscow and the West.
Russian volunteers fought for the Bosnian Serbs during the war, and the Kremlin later opposed Kosovo's independence from Serbia and blocked a 2015 draft resolution in the
United Nations
to recognise the Srebrenica massacre as genocide.
Dodik is a frequent visitor to Russia, and has continued to travel there since a Bosnian state court gave him a one-year jail term in February and banned him from politics for six years for defying decisions from the high representative. A verdict on his appeal against the conviction is expected in the coming weeks.
Already under US sanctions for alleged corruption and undermining Bosnian statehood, Dodik rejected the authority of the court and the high representative, and his allies in the Republika Srpska parliament barred state police and judicial authorities from acting on the region's territory.
Dodik (66) has found support from the Kremlin's other allies in the region – Serbia and Hungary. Budapest sent up to 300 members of a police special forces unit to Republika Srpska for unannounced 'training' that coincided with the February court verdict, in what could have been a show of strength or preparations to protect him from arrest.
Last week, Republika Srpska deputies voted to create an auxiliary police force. Dodik's allies say the reserves will help the region cope with emergencies, but critics say it is another step towards creating a police state dedicated to protecting the region's president.
Christian Schmidt, a veteran German politician who is now international high representative for Bosnia in Sarajevo. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
'I wouldn't exclude that some are thinking about him as a kind of politically destructive player, on strings. I hope he is wise enough [to see that] normally this is not healthy for those playing this game. These are not reliable partners,' Christian Schmidt, Bosnia's current high representative, says about Moscow's closeness to Dodik.
'I see that there is a challenge from Russia, perhaps coming to use the western Balkans as a second-level playing field, maybe somehow to draw attention from Ukraine,' he warns, while insisting that the 'situation is manageable.'
Balkans expert Jasmin Mujanovic describes Dodik as an 'eager, pliant proxy of Russia' who 'remains the most significant threat to peace and security' in Bosnia and the region.
'But his political power has also weakened significantly in recent years,' says Mujanovic, a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington-based New Lines Institute. 'He is not strong enough to dismantle the state, but the relevant authorities in Sarajevo also appear to lack the courage to use the full weight of the legal-security apparatus to bring him to heel.'
After defying the national authorities for months, Dodik made a surprise appearance for questioning at the prosecutor's office in Sarajevo last Friday. A court then lifted an arrest warrant and ordered him to report regularly to the state authorities.
'The deal he made with the public prosecutor is obviously a slap on the wrist and the [Bosnian] public is, rightfully, aghast,' Mujanovic says. 'Yet it also shows he was not able to simply ignore the state authorities, nor could he secure his desired secession from the state.'
A billboard in Serb-run Srebrenica announcing a commemoration event for Serbs killed by Bosniaks during the 1992-5 Bosnian war. The gathering last Saturday was called 'Thirty-three years of crimes without punishment.' Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin
Durakovic, now a vice-president in Republika Srpska, also believes Dodik is running out of options and can no longer be certain of support from Serbia, where autocratic president Aleksandar Vucic is under pressure from massive student-led street protests.
He thinks the crunch will come if Dodik loses the appeal against his conviction and is banned from holding office in Bosnia.
'In a month we'll have a different situation,' Durakovic says. 'Then we'll see what direction we'll go. Let's hope it's positive.'
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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
Leaders join thousands of mourners in Bosnia to mark 30 years since Srebrenica genocide
International officials joined thousands of mourners in eastern Bosnia on Friday to mark 30 years since Serb forces massacred 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica . They also attended the burial of victims whose remains are still being pieced together from mass graves. Leaders of western states and most neighbouring countries called for a renewed commitment to prevent genocide anywhere in the world, while Serbia and Bosnian Serb officials continue to reject international court rulings that the massacre was genocide. 'In this moment of remembrance, we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to accountability and truth,' European Council president Antonio Costa said. He was speaking at a commemoration ceremony at the vast cemetery at Potocari, just outside Srebrenica, where 6,772 Srebrenica victims are buried after seven were laid to rest on Friday. Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Listen | 39:42 'There is no room in Europe - or anywhere else - for genocide denial, revisionism, or the glorification of those responsible. Denying such horrors only poisons our future. It is our duty to confront and acknowledge the full truth. This is the first step in ensuring that such atrocities never happen again,' Mr Costa said. READ MORE A flower is seen on a monument with the names of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide. Photograph: Armin Durgut/AP 'Even as we are all together to mourn and remember, we also carry the promise of renewal ... A journey from war and genocide to peace and prosperity. The European Union is a project of peace, born from the ashes of a tragic war and driven by a vision of reconciliation. This is the same vision that inspires us on the enlargement to the western Balkan countries. We believe the place of Bosnia ... is in the European Union.' Bosnia's progress towards the EU is stymied by a dysfunctional political system imposed by the Dayton Accords - which ended a 1992-1995 war that killed 100,000 people – and by Serb rejection of deeper integration in the Muslim-majority country and their refusal to accept genocide was committed at Srebrenica. [ 'I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza' Opens in new window ] Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders acknowledge that grave crimes took place, but deny that it was genocide against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims). A woman reacts as she sits among gravestones at the memorial cemetery in the village of Potocari on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. Photograph: Andrej Isakovic/AFP 'Today marks 30 years since the terrible crime in Srebrenica was committed,' Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said on social media. 'We cannot change the past, but we must change the future. Once again, on behalf of the citizens of Serbia, I express my condolences to the families of the Bosniak victims, confident that a similar crime will never happen again.' The wartime Bosnian Serb political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic , were convicted of committing genocide at Srebrenica by a United Nations tribunal at The Hague, and two international courts ruled that genocide took place. Srebrenica had been declared as a UN 'safe haven' for Bosniaks from a Serb campaign of so-called ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia. However, the UN, Nato and western governments stood idle as Mladic's forces overran the area on July 11th, 1995, expelled Dutch peacekeepers and seized thousands of Bosniak civilians. [ 'Facing the past is still our biggest problem': Bosnia divided 30 years after Srebrenica genocide Opens in new window ] The men and boys were separated from the women and executed over the following days in fields, forests, warehouses, farm buildings, cultural centres and other locations. Later, Serbs excavated mass graves with bulldozers, moved bodies across the country in dump trucks and reburied them to hide war crimes. As a result, the remains of many victims were dispersed between multiple graves, and only pieced together over time using advanced DNA identification techniques. 'The mass identification of victims in Bosnia…has demonstrated that the fog of war cannot completely obscure the truth – and when the truth is recovered, justice becomes possible,' said Munira Subasic, president of the Mothers of Srebrenica movement and Kathryne Bomberger, director-general of the International Commission on Missing Persons, in a joint statement.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Irish Times
‘I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza'
The world will mark 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide on Friday, but promises of 'never again' from western leaders ring hollow to many survivors of the Serb massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. Two years before the slaughter led by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's troops, Srebrenica had been declared a United Nations safe haven, where Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians would be protected by international peacekeepers. But Mladic was right to think the promise of protection was empty. As his forces shelled and overran the enclave, lightly armed Dutch soldiers in the area pleaded for air strikes. UN, Nato and western leaders dithered, and Serb troops simply expelled the peacekeepers and took control over tens of thousands of terrified Bosniaks. 'We were left to be murdered. Nobody cared,' says Jasmin Jusufovic, who as an eight-year-old in Srebrenica saw his father taken away to be executed by Serb soldiers who also killed all his other closest adult male relatives. 'We were put in a concentration camp under an open sky and then on July 11th ... you are trusting the Serbs – who have shown you for the past four years what they are capable of – to do something humane in Srebrenica,' he says. 'So as much as the culprits and responsibility for the genocide are Serb, it is also on the international community ... Because this is a genocide that was served on a plate to the Serbs.' Jasmin Jusufovic, a Bosniak who was eight years old when he survived the Srebrenica genocide, in which Bosnian Serb troops killed his father and all his other closest adult male relatives. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin The Bosnian war was in its fourth year when the Serbs seized Srebrenica. Jusufovic and his parents had been driven from their home in the village of Drinjaca, 55km northwest of the town, when Serbs attacked the area in May 1992. 'We were having lunch for Eid. Everything my mother had prepared for the festival was left on the table. We just had to go.' With his parents and members of his extended family, Jusufovic watched from the surrounding hills as Serb armour destroyed their house and the village mosque. They joined waves of Bosniaks who were being put to flight by a Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia. The desperate situation was compounded by a western arms embargo on Bosnia that put its military at a huge disadvantage to Serb forces that had access to large stockpiles of ex-Yugoslav army weapons. In January 1994, the family had to flee again as Serb units bore down on the town of Konjevic Polje. They trekked through deep snow to reach Potocari – a village outside Srebrenica that is now the site of a burial ground for more than 6,700 victims of the genocide – and Jusufovic remembers being chilled to the bone when they arrived. Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Listen | 39:42 'A family friend in Srebrenica gave us a house to live in, because it was empty after his mother had been killed by the Serbs. Ten of us lived in two rooms. And I started to go to school in Srebrenica,' Jusufovic recalls. 'I always remember my family trying to live as normally as they could, no matter what the circumstances. Spring came and I remember everyone going out of the house and finding a bit of land to plant and grow something,' he says. 'I was getting this feeling of life functioning. My parents and other relatives were there, I was going to school, making friends. I could forget about the siege happening around us. As a kid you don't have big territory – just your house and your school. Sporadic gunfire and shelling intensified as Serb advances in 1995 made a mockery of western declarations that Srebrenica should be a demilitarised zone. 'On July 8th, I was woken up early by a rumbling noise that I could feel in my bones, as if it was coming through the ground. The attack on Srebrenica had started,' says Jusufovic. 'We were so heavily bombarded that it felt like we were boiling in a pot. There would be a few minutes of respite, maybe when they were reloading, when we could run to check on my grandmother or uncles or cousins. It was all frantic running.' By the morning of July 11th it was too dangerous to stay in Srebrenica. Jusufovic's parents again gathered up a few essentials and he wondered which books to stuff into his rucksack. He chose The Little Prince, a children's encyclopedia and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: 'I remember looking out from our house, which overlooked the road, and seeing a sea of heads running,' he says. Thousands of people sought protection at the Dutch peacekeepers' base at a former battery factory in Potocari, as Mladic's triumphant men roamed the area. 'Don't be afraid, no one will harm you,' Mladic told terrified Bosniaks, as he and his men threw chocolates and cigarettes to their new prisoners. To his own people Mladic gave a different message, peppered with slurs that Serbs have used against Muslims since the days of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. 'Here we are, on July 11th, 1995, in Serb Srebrenica. We give this town to the Serb people as a gift,' Mladic said in an address filmed by a Serb cameraman. 'Finally ... the time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region.' First, the Serb troops took away Bosniak men trapped outside the locked gates of the packed battery factory. Two days later, the Serbs ordered people inside the UN base to come out, and the peacekeepers just looked on. Jusufovic and his mother climbed into a waiting truck with other women and children, as the Serbs separated out the men and some of the boys. 'I saw the Serbs pushing my father away. He was holding my red jacket. I remember watching him, voiceless but everything inside me was screaming. And he just put his finger to his lips to tell me to stay silent and keep going.' He was shot dead in the village of Pilica, where Serb soldiers executed hundreds of prisoners in a cultural centre. [ Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Opens in new window ] 'Three of my mother's brothers were also murdered in Srebrenica, and a fourth in Drinjaca,' Jusufovic says. 'My father's brother was murdered in Srebrenica. The husbands of my father's sisters, four of them, were also murdered. The husband of my mother's sister was also murdered in Srebrenica, as was his father. The father of my aunt was also murdered, as were more distant relatives.' A Bosnian Muslim woman visits gravestones during a funeral ceremony for 50 newly-identified Bosnian Muslim victims, at the Potocari Memorial Centre and Cemetery in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in July 2022. Photograph: Jasmin Brutus/EPA Jusufovic's father was buried in the memorial cemetery at Potocari only in 2012. Like many victims of Serb killings, his remains were found in multiple graves after Serbs moved bodies using mechanical diggers and dump trucks to try to hide war crimes. Seven victims recently identified through DNA analysis will be buried there on Friday. International courts ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide and, after 14 years on the run, Mladic was found guilty of genocide along with Radovan Karadzic, wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Serbia and Republika Srpska – an autonomous Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina – acknowledge that grave crimes were committed at Srebrenica but deny it was genocide, and glorification of war criminals is not uncommon in Serb society, making reconciliation with Bosniaks a remote prospect. Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'The facts of this case have been established so many times over and are readily available,' says Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre that is housed in the former battery factory that became the doomed base for UN peacekeepers. 'We're not going to debate facts. When facts are not debated, then we can sit down and have any kind of conversation. This is the most researched and investigated mass atrocity in the 20th century. DNA techniques, satellite technology and all other types of electronic technology were used. So join reality, then we can talk.' [ 'It's an honour to be able to send a warning': Defiant Sarajevo a scarred survivor of Bosnia's war Opens in new window ] In advance of Friday's commemoration events, UN secretary general António Guterres acknowledged that 'the United Nations and the world failed the people of Srebrenica. This collective failure was not an accident of history. It was the result of policies, propaganda and international indifference.' Yet such statements sound false to many Bosniaks when the West cannot find the conviction to stop current conflicts, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine or Israel's onslaught against Gaza . 'Today what hurts me, and I'm having serious trouble grasping, is that I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza,' Jusufovic says. 'What have we learned from Srebrenica if we are allowing all of this to happen again now? Every kid I see ... their soul being ripped from their body with shock and tragedy, shaking with starvation – was me 30 years ago,' he adds. 'Whenever I see international officials empathising about Srebrenica while staying silent on Palestine – excuse me, I don't believe a word of what you are saying. If you really mean it, then do something. The whole point of Srebrenica is never again – anywhere.'
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Irish Times
‘The whole point of Srebrenica is never again – anywhere': West's sympathy rings hollow to many survivors of genocide
The world will mark 30 years since the Srebrenica genocide on Friday, but promises of 'never again' from western leaders ring hollow to many survivors of the Serb massacre of 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. Two years before the slaughter led by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic's troops, Srebrenica had been declared a United Nations safe haven, where Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) civilians would be protected by international peacekeepers. But Mladic was right to think the promise of protection was empty. As his forces shelled and overran the enclave, lightly armed Dutch soldiers in the area pleaded for air strikes. UN, Nato and western leaders dithered, and Serb troops simply expelled the peacekeepers and took control over tens of thousands of terrified Bosniaks. 'We were left to be murdered. Nobody cared,' says Jasmin Jusufovic, who as an eight-year-old in Srebrenica saw his father taken away to be executed by Serb soldiers who also killed all his other closest adult male relatives. 'We were put in a concentration camp under an open sky and then on July 11th ... you are trusting the Serbs – who have shown you for the past four years what they are capable of – to do something humane in Srebrenica,' he says. 'So as much as the culprits and responsibility for the genocide are Serb, it is also on the international community ... Because this is a genocide that was served on a plate to the Serbs.' Jasmin Jusufovic, a Bosniak who was eight years old when he survived the Srebrenica genocide, in which Bosnian Serb troops killed his father and all his other closest adult male relatives. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin The Bosnian war was in its fourth year when the Serbs seized Srebrenica. Jusufovic and his parents had been driven from their home in the village of Drinjaca, 55km northwest of the town, when Serbs attacked the area in May 1992. 'We were having lunch for Eid. Everything my mother had prepared for the festival was left on the table. We just had to go.' With his parents and members of his extended family, Jusufovic watched from the surrounding hills as Serb armour destroyed their house and the village mosque. They joined waves of Bosniaks who were being put to flight by a Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia. The desperate situation was compounded by a western arms embargo on Bosnia that put its military at a huge disadvantage to Serb forces that had access to large stockpiles of ex-Yugoslav army weapons. In January 1994, the family had to flee again as Serb units bore down on the town of Konjevic Polje. They trekked through deep snow to reach Potocari – a village outside Srebrenica that is now the site of a burial ground for more than 6,700 victims of the genocide – and Jusufovic remembers being chilled to the bone when they arrived. 'A family friend in Srebrenica gave us a house to live in, because it was empty after his mother had been killed by the Serbs. Ten of us lived in two rooms. And I started to go to school in Srebrenica,' Jusufovic recalls. 'I always remember my family trying to live as normally as they could, no matter what the circumstances. Spring came and I remember everyone going out of the house and finding a bit of land to plant and grow something,' he says. 'I was getting this feeling of life functioning. My parents and other relatives were there, I was going to school, making friends. I could forget about the siege happening around us. As a kid you don't have big territory – just your house and your school. Sporadic gunfire and shelling intensified as Serb advances in 1995 made a mockery of western declarations that Srebrenica should be a demilitarised zone. 'On July 8th, I was woken up early by a rumbling noise that I could feel in my bones, as if it was coming through the ground. The attack on Srebrenica had started,' says Jusufovic. 'We were so heavily bombarded that it felt like we were boiling in a pot. There would be a few minutes of respite, maybe when they were reloading, when we could run to check on my grandmother or uncles or cousins. It was all frantic running.' By the morning of July 11th it was too dangerous to stay in Srebrenica. Jusufovic's parents again gathered up a few essentials and he wondered which books to stuff into his rucksack. He chose The Little Prince, a children's encyclopedia and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: 'I remember looking out from our house, which overlooked the road, and seeing a sea of heads running,' he says. Thousands of people sought protection at the Dutch peacekeepers' base at a former battery factory in Potocari, as Mladic's triumphant men roamed the area. 'Don't be afraid, no one will harm you,' Mladic told terrified Bosniaks, as he and his men threw chocolates and cigarettes to their new prisoners. To his own people Mladic gave a different message, peppered with slurs that Serbs have used against Muslims since the days of Ottoman rule in the Balkans. 'Here we are, on July 11th, 1995, in Serb Srebrenica. We give this town to the Serb people as a gift,' Mladic said in an address filmed by a Serb cameraman. 'Finally ... the time has come to take revenge on the Turks in this region.' First, the Serb troops took away Bosniak men trapped outside the locked gates of the packed battery factory. Two days later, the Serbs ordered people inside the UN base to come out, and the peacekeepers just looked on. Jusufovic and his mother climbed into a waiting truck with other women and children, as the Serbs separated out the men and some of the boys. 'I saw the Serbs pushing my father away. He was holding my red jacket. I remember watching him, voiceless but everything inside me was screaming. And he just put his finger to his lips to tell me to stay silent and keep going.' He was shot dead in the village of Pilica, where Serb soldiers executed hundreds of prisoners in a cultural centre. [ Srebrenica genocide: Why Bosnia is still divided 30 years on Opens in new window ] 'Three of my mother's brothers were also murdered in Srebrenica, and a fourth in Drinjaca,' Jusufovic says. 'My father's brother was murdered in Srebrenica. The husbands of my father's sisters, four of them, were also murdered. The husband of my mother's sister was also murdered in Srebrenica, as was his father. The father of my aunt was also murdered, as were more distant relatives.' A Bosnian Muslim woman visits gravestones during a funeral ceremony for 50 newly-identified Bosnian Muslim victims, at the Potocari Memorial Centre and Cemetery in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in July 2022. Photograph: Jasmin Brutus/EPA Jusufovic's father was buried in the memorial cemetery at Potocari only in 2012. Like many victims of Serb killings, his remains were found in multiple graves after Serbs moved bodies using mechanical diggers and dump trucks to try to hide war crimes. Seven victims recently identified through DNA analysis will be buried there on Friday. International courts ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide and, after 14 years on the run, Mladic was found guilty of genocide along with Radovan Karadzic, wartime political leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Serbia and Republika Srpska – an autonomous Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina – acknowledge that grave crimes were committed at Srebrenica but deny it was genocide, and glorification of war criminals is not uncommon in Serb society, making reconciliation with Bosniaks a remote prospect. Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin 'The facts of this case have been established so many times over and are readily available,' says Emir Suljagic, head of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre that is housed in the former battery factory that became the doomed base for UN peacekeepers. 'We're not going to debate facts. When facts are not debated, then we can sit down and have any kind of conversation. This is the most researched and investigated mass atrocity in the 20th century. DNA techniques, satellite technology and all other types of electronic technology were used. So join reality, then we can talk.' [ 'It's an honour to be able to send a warning': Defiant Sarajevo a scarred survivor of Bosnia's war Opens in new window ] In advance of Friday's commemoration events, UN secretary general António Guterres acknowledged that 'the United Nations and the world failed the people of Srebrenica. This collective failure was not an accident of history. It was the result of policies, propaganda and international indifference.' Yet such statements sound false to many Bosniaks when the West cannot find the conviction to stop current conflicts, such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine or Israel's onslaught against Gaza . 'Today what hurts me, and I'm having serious trouble grasping, is that I'm remembering Srebrenica while Srebrenica is happening in Gaza,' Jusufovic says. 'What have we learned from Srebrenica if we are allowing all of this to happen again now? Every kid I see ... their soul being ripped from their body with shock and tragedy, shaking with starvation – was me 30 years ago,' he adds. 'Whenever I see international officials empathising about Srebrenica while staying silent on Palestine – excuse me, I don't believe a word of what you are saying. If you really mean it, then do something. The whole point of Srebrenica is never again – anywhere.'
